{"id":9884,"date":"2014-12-10T09:45:56","date_gmt":"2014-12-10T17:45:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=9884"},"modified":"2014-12-10T09:45:56","modified_gmt":"2014-12-10T17:45:56","slug":"behind-the-wheel-with-ken-regenthal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/behind-the-wheel-with-ken-regenthal\/","title":{"rendered":"Behind the Wheel with Ken Regenthal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Behind<\/a><\/p>\n


\nThe Burnout <\/em>is proud to introduce a new feature series to our fans.\u00a0It’s time to jump Behind The Wheel <\/strong>with some of our favorite weekend warriors throughout the country to give you a look into the lives ofwhat it takes to get down the track and perform on top. \u00a0 We begin this <\/strong>series with a 38 year drag racing veteran and Lewisville, NC native Ken Regenthal.\u00a0Better known as the ‘Carolina Hooker,\u2019Regenthal began his weekend warrior career in a Chevy Nova at the age of 22. \u00a0 \u201cI started racing in March of 1976 after hearing an ad on the radio for an event in East Bend, NC,\u201d said Regenthal with a nostalgic gleam in his eye.\u00a0\u201cI used to race my friends on the street and behind my high school when I was younger with my 1970 Nova street legal rod, with a 307 engine and a three speed transmission, and I thought that it would be fun to see how fast it would get down a drag strip.\u201d \u00a0 As the old saying goes, the rest was history.\u00a0Regenthal had the need for speed coursing through his veins so he began competing at tracks throughout the country. \u00a0 \u201cI continued to build and compete with that Nova for a couple of years, adding a little something each week like a roll bar, slicks,etc. until I decided that it was time to move up,\u201d said Regenthal. \u00a0 With thoughts of getting the most speed on the track possible, this warrior decided it was time to move up to what he considers the real deal–Corvettes. \u00a0 \u201cAfter selling the Nova, I bought a 1964 Chevrolet Corvette from my good friend and drag racing legend Don Plemmons, who has had some of the fastest cars on the drag racing circuit,\u201d said Regenthal.\u00a0\u201cI put an engine in this and raced it for a few years before moving to a lighter weight car that I felt could really outperform most that I was competing with.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"behind<\/a>
\nAfter jumping out of the Plemmons Corvette, Regenthal got his hands dirty and build a light weight kit car with a fiberglass body. \u00a0 \u201cI was picking up some real speed in this car, in fact I got a 4.88 time with it, which was pretty fast in 1988 and I won several races,but there was just something missing,\u201d said Regenthal.\u00a0\u201cI just needed to go faster!!\u201d \u00a0 What would make this speed demon \u201cgo faster\u201d?\u00a0Back to the faithful Corvette and Regenthal’s start in the International Hot Rod Association\u2019s (IHRA) Pro Mod racing series.\u00a0\u201cIf I was going to compete in the IHRA, I wanted only the best.\u00a0Fortunately, I became friends with well-known fabricator Tommy Mooney who built a car that really had some power,\u201d said Regenthal.\u00a0\u201cWe ran strong for several years, and I even won back to back championships in 1992 and 1993 as well as more than 50 races competing on tracks like Princeton Speedway, where I still hold the track record, Piedmont Dragway and even legendary Darlington Dragway.\u201d \u00a0 What is this legend’s favorite part of racing a ProMod?\u00a0\u201cI was hated by most of my competitors because I was so fast,\u201d said Regenthal.\u00a0\u201cMy favorite story is being paid to leave Piedmont Dragway because both myself and well known NHRA Pro Mod driver Ricky Smith had the quickest qualifying times at a Big Dog Shootout event.\u00a0All the other drivers said that they would leave if we stayed because they couldn’t beat us!\u201d \u00a0 After a few years competing in Pro Mods, Regenthal began to concentrate on his rapidly growing family and decided to step away from the IHRA.\u00a0\u201cIt just became too much work,money and time away from my family,\u201d said Regenthal. \u00a0 Shortly after, this speed veteran began a new chapter in his weekend warrior career.\u00a0\u201cAfter stepping out of a pro mod I found out about the Classic Gear Jammers Association, which focuses on the type of drag racing I love the most: old school American classic stick shift cars,\u201d said Regenthal. \u00a0 Although not competing full-time today, this North Carolina drag racing phenom has continued to turn heads in his Carolina Hooker Gear Jammer Corvette.\u00a0\u201cThis car has a four block engine and doesn’t even need nitrous to turn some of the fastest speeds.\u00a0In fact, I recently ran a speed of 5.25 seconds at Farmington Dragway’s 1\/8th of a mile.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"behind<\/a>
\nThe best part of his racing career today has also focused on the lessons that he can teach other up-and-coming drivers.\u00a0In fact, Regenthal’s son Kenny Regenthal is also competing with his dad in the Classic Gear Jammers, Gear Jammer Series.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u201cI enjoy teaching my son what I have learned over the years and how he can improve above what I have done in the past based on what I have learned,\u201d said Regenthal.\u00a0\u201cIn fact, this is the best advice that I can give to any young driver who is coming up in the drag racing world today no matter what age, take the time to learn from those who are willing to give you advice and pointers.\u201d \u00a0 So what is next for Regenthal?\u00a0Many have speculated retirement.\u00a0\u201cI really almost did retire once,\u201d said Regenthal.\u00a0\u201cNow that I am back to the type of drag racing that I really love, I may not race all of the time, but I may just stick with this until I am 75 or 80-years-old. \u00a0 We will continue to follow the lives and careers of veteran drivers like the Carolina Hooker, Ken Regenthal so stay tuned for more about your favorite weekend warrior stars exclusively on The Burnout <\/em>at RacingJunk.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Behind the Wheel explores the world of the weekend warrior, the amateur racer, and the quickest amongst us. This week, Ellen Richardson interviews former Pro Mod driver, and current Gear Jammer Ken Regenthal.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":9888,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3465,8],"tags":[1667,524,1669,1619,4799,1668,1666],"class_list":["post-9884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drag-racing","category-ihra","tag-behind-the-wheel","tag-chevy-nova","tag-classic-gear-jammers-association","tag-ellen-richardson","tag-ihra","tag-ken-regenthal","tag-pro-mod"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/Behind-the-wheel-FEAT.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-2zq","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9884"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9890,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9884\/revisions\/9890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}